Happy bunny

I found some Happy Bunny stuff at a shop downtown! This surprised me, I thought it was sold in the US only. I got keychains and buttons saying

• boys are funny when they try to think
  
• farting is fun and makes the room warmer
  
• your ugliness cheers me up
  
• I'm changing my naughty ways to naughtier ones
  

More Quizzes

Men See You As Understated

You are an intreguing mix of girl and woman. You're feminine, quiet, and a total mystery to most men. Yet they often feel the urge to protect you, even if they don't know you. You *are* a flirt, but you usually only flirt with those you know well

How Do Men See You?

You are Milk Chocolate

A total dreamer, you spend most of your time with your head in the clouds. You often think of the future, and you are always working toward your ideal life. Also nostelgic, you rarely forget a meaningful moment... even those from long ago.

What Kind of Chocolate Are You?

Guys Like That You're Sensitive

And not in that "cry at a drop of a hat" sort of way You just get most guys - even if you're not trying to Guys find it is easy to confide in you and tell you their secrets No wonder you tend to get close quickly in relationships!

What Do Guys Like About You?

Your Reputation Is: Mystery Girl

You're the girl that everyone is trying to figure out. Men are attracted to your intriguing persona - and women want to copy it!

What's Your Reputation?

Quiz Time

[via PowerProf]

You Are Prancer

You are the perfect reindeer, with perfect hooves and perfect flying form. Why You're Naughty: Because you're Santa's pet, and you won't let anyone show you up. Why You're Nice: You have the softest fur and the sweetest carrot breath.

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

News from The Thesis

I think I just figured out the last thing of Part A. I want the Major Claims to be done before christmas. This is next Tuesday. Tomorrow I'll finish the typing of the last thing of Part A.

Today I met a friend of mine who is also a grad student, but he has a job at the university for 4 years. He hasn't written a single page yet b/c his boss keeps him busy with other things. I told him today that I've got more than 100 pages now. He was shocked. I am sorry to have hurt him. I was at the zero pages stage in April, I don't know why, but I have been productive.

Well, he still has his job for 2 1/2 years and I need a new one next fall. Guess that made me write. And gorgeous New Supervisor, of course. Today I just thought of her and remebered that she was writing with a fountain pen. I love fountain pens. About everyone except her and me use ballpens in academia. At least, I have never really seen someone 20+ using a fountain pen.

Question

Why do I check my email 500 times per day? If I only get 15 messages every day? Do I really believe that I get more messages the more often I check? Do I really believe that if I checked only every 30 minutes I would miss an important thing? If I do this because I want to communicate, I should rather go out with someone. People do not like to send emails every 2 minutes. People prefer face-to-face meetings. Is it the people I miss or am I in love with email itself, not bothering who writes?

Note to self, 2

me: start working NOW. You have been sitting in front of the computer for 2 1/2 hours.
Me: No.
me: you know you want it done. work.
Me: yeeees. I want it done. There is not very much to do.
me: DO IT NOW. If it's little, it'll be over soon.
Me: Little, unimportant and boooooooring stuff.
Me: I am supposed to have the BIG career. I am supposed to do RESEARCH, not to type that stupid dissertation. I want to go to conferences and have journal articles published. The thesis is booooring. It'll end up in the library anyway.
me: Go to conferences? You ARE going to a conference. Work on your presentation!!
Me: All other scholars are going to MORE conferences than I am. And all other scholars have MORE papers published.
me: All other scholars have DONE their dissertation. FIRST.
Me: I am tired. I feel bad. I don't want to work. I want to blog.
me: you feel more tired and you are going to hate your work even more if you keep procrastinating
Me: But I don't want to do it NOW.
...
...
...
..
.
.

Note to self

Stop surfing. Stop staring at computer.
You like your work. You think it is fun once you have opened the file and typed one sentence. There is only a few things more to do to the current file.
Lots of other projects are to be done once this fucking dissertation is finished.
Stop surfing. Stop blogging.

Beamer

I spent the whole day playing aroung with Beamer, the LaTeX plugin for slideshow presentations. This is sooo cooool. My presentation will look verrry beautiful.

This made my day!!

This story is sooo funny!!!!

But I do not get why it is considered normal to fuck between library shelves but not in an university office.

Why me? And why everything at the same time?

Thanks, PowerProf, for the snow dance. There is this ugly snowish rain coming down here today. Yuck!

This morning, I had to carry my cello to the car and to hold an umbrella. And then, I had to open the car with a key. Having only two hands, I got wet. Yuck!

After the lesson, I went to the bakery to get some treats, again, carrying the cello and the umbrella. When I got out of the shop, I noticed that both my underpants were slipping down my but and my bra was slipping down my shoulders. Yuck!

How I hate lose underwear!!!

Deleted

I just deleted the two pages I have written today because they were totally rediculous and don't fit into the chapter at all. This is why I have been struggling with them so hard. I couldn't see their point -- there wasn't any.

Reward approaching!

Tomorrow (yees, the day after the night where the last three paragraphs were completed), I will have a cello lesson at 11, then go to a museum show (I wanted to see this for months and it's gonna close soon), then have dinner in a city and go to the movies.

Just two and a half more paragraphs to go.

Why is writing so difficult?

I have it all. The idea. The plan for each paragraph. The papers I'm going to cite.

What is my problem? Why can't I just key it in? The English language is not that difficult! Why do I keep procrastinating? I have a lot of fun things to do after that three paragraphs are written. So, why don't I just write them?

The beneift of academic blogging

The latest entry of La Lecturess reminds me that I wanted to talk about how much I love the blogging community.

I could see this when I was working with Collaboratorix, who - presumably - is not blogging.

All those stories from each of you, about the process of getting a job, about the fights with faculty members, about the insecurities, the doubt that it is oneself who might me too stupid for the academic world. This has brought me so much self-confidence!

It is really the same thing everywhere. So it is not my personal fault if I get into a troubeling situation.

And, yeah, a final point: even the blogs of more advanced collegues are very helpful, because I get to know how they feel about work and students, so it helps me to better understand the beliefs and desires of the Real Professors I meet.

Christmas

It is strange. It is the first time after approx. 15 years that I am not completely pissed when I hear a christmas song on the radio. I even laughed and thought it was fun when I heard Last Christmas for the first time this year a couple of days ago.

Usually, I would mark that day as Shit-Times-Begin-Day and would be angry for hours.

Do I like christmas again?
How can this be?

The end of Weirdo Friend

As promised, I wanted to write about the end of my relationship with Weirdo Friend

As you maybe have in mind, I had a troubeling friendship for a while. Every now and then I thought of calling him again, but - mostly thanks to Anastasia and Mistaken - I didn't.

He invited me to his birthday party some weeks ago, but I didn't accept. I told him that I feel bad about our relation and that I wanted to talk. Up to now, we didn't, so it's finally and completely over. And I'm absolutely happy with that!

The interesting point is, that last fall I found out what went wrong. I keep feeling that I'm getting to be an adult more and more because I get to know my own needs and wants more and more. I guess, to know what one wants is the first step. The second step, expressing the desires, is only the follow-up.

Regarding Weirdo Friend, I think what I was looking for in this friendship is an academic collaborator. And what he was looking for was a companion (or maybe a girlfriend; not sure on this). I got furious when he didn't help me emotionally when I went to Another Town last spring. I felt so bad at that time and I needed a friend who was willing to support me. I wanted to discuss my fear of the journey, of finding an appartment, of meeting the big professors over there, of having to give a presentation, of talking to New Supervisor.

He was so furious when I told him I'd go there. He kept saying that the whole idea of going to Another Town was completely rediculous etc.

I just couldn't stand him anymore.

But now, after things have calmed down, I think it is just that the two of us were looking for different things. Different things in life and different things in a friendship. He is not interested in an academic carreer (he is not interessted in any career). And I do not share his spare time activities at all. We even disagree on the types of cafés we like.

I am so glad I know myself better now. And I am happy that I do not have to have fights with him without knowing the reasons for the disagreement.